LEXINGTON – What races on Tuesday’s primary ballot matter most for the Nov. 6 general election?

Only one is drawing national attention: the six-person Democratic contest in the 6th Congressional District to take on three-term Republican Rep. Andy Barr of Lexington, whose track record and talents have made him a potential successor to Sen. Mitch McConnell when the majority leader leaves the stage.

Barr’s last two Democratic foes were political newcomers who failed to gain traction, but now he will face either Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, the popular leader of an urban county where 40 percent of the voters live, or recently retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath of Georgetown, who started early and used a biographical video to develop a national fund-raising base – so big that three-fourths of her money has come from out of state. It has allowed her to outspend Gray and catch up to him in polls.

Gray’s record would normally be a winning one. Lexington’s unemployment rate is a mere 3 percent, its pension problems are solved, Gray has forged an alliance with Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, and the vacant downtown block that Sen. Rand Paul occasionally chided him about (with no real basis) in their 2016 race is getting new hotels and other buildings.

But voters are hungry for fresh faces, and McGrath fits the bill, especially for a moderate-district seat that changed parties in 1992, 1998, 2004 and 2012. Gray, finding himself the relative insider, played outsider in Monday night’s KET forum, saying he wouldn’t vote to return Rep. Nancy Pelosi to the House speaker’s chair if Democrats win the majority.

McGrath said “I am deeply concerned about the leadership of the national Democratic Party” but “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to say because I don’t know who’s running.” That wasn’t quite as strong as state Sen. Reggie Thomas, who said he “would be looking for change” if elected but “I won’t say categorically no (to Pelosi) because I don’t know who she’s running against.”

Pelosi has long been a piñata for Republicans. Now McConnell plays that role for Democrats (and some Republicans). At the forum, Gray accused the Senate leader of not taking the opioid epidemic seriously, calling a recent proposal “too little, too late.” On paid TV, a Gray commercial shows McConnell beside President Trump as Gray says “Getting things done for Kentucky means taking on Congress, the White House and all that corporate money.”

McGrath’s last ad calls Barr “Mitch McConnell’s hand-picked congressman” who said he would “vote enthusiastically to take health care away from a quarter-million Kentuckians.”

Meanwhile, Barr seems to be running scared. He is running TV ads, though his primary opponent, Chuck Eddy, is a first-time candidate with a shoestring campaign.

Eddy is a manifestation of Barr's vulnerability. He says he voted Republican for president until Trump came along, and is an old-fashioned GOP moderate. There are many like him in the Inner Bluegrass, where the party has a strong temperate streak and some members worry about its rightward turn, embrace of Trump and abandonment of fiscal responsibility.

Barr keeps Trump at arm’s length, saying they don’t always agree, but on radio talk shows, he gets calls from Trump followers wanting to know why he's not more of a fire-breather. He is adept at deflecting such inquiries, but his glibness will face its strongest test starting Tuesday night.

Al Cross(Photo: SCJ)

Other races to watch Tuesday night (I’ll be part of the coverage-and-commentary team on KET from 7 to 9 p.m. ET):

• The GOP primary to pick a foe for U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville, for which former state health secretary Vickie Yates Brown Glisson raised $232,183 through May 2, and Mike Craven and Rhonda Palazzo haven’t filed financial reports.

• Teacher R. Travis Brenda’s challenge to state House Majority Leader Jonathan Shell of Lancaster, who has raised $131,243 and is running TV commercials on Lexington stations. Brenda, who is not a member of the Kentucky Education Association, has raised $16,126, none of it from KEA though May 7.

• Nonpartisan primaries for the state Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, respectively, in the Appalachian and mostly Appalachian districts; the top two vote-getters in such primaries face off in the fall.

The nonpartisan primary for Gray’s seat has seven candidates, including former Mayor Teresa Isaac; Council Member Kevin Stinnett, the favorite of developers; former Vice Mayor Linda Gorton, the favorite of farmland preservationists; and former public safety commissioner Ronnie Bastin, who was named police chief by then-Mayor Jim Newberry, whom Gray beat in 2010. If Bastin succeeds Gray, he will be the third Lexington mayor in a row who grew up in Southern Kentucky’s Barren County. What’s up with that U.S. Highway 68 pipeline?

Al Cross, a former Courier Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and associate professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media. His opinions are his own, not UK's.